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Basking Shark
Basking Shark BASKING SHARK – CETORHINUS MAXIMUS The basking shark is the second largest shark in the world, only surpassed by the whale shark and, also, is one of the three planktivorous sharks. It is a “kind” shark for divers, despite its size and the impressive mouth that it possesses. It belongs to the order Lamniformes, to the family Cetorhinidae and the genus Cetorhinus. DESCRIPTION The most impressive feature of the basking shark is its mouth, which opens up to 1 meter wide. It has a conical body covered with a layer of mucus, gray or brown skin on the back and white on the belly. Its dorsal and pectoral fins are so large that they can reach 2 meters each and its tail is crescent moon shaped. It has a conical snout and large gills. Inside its mouth, this shark has several hook-shaped small teeth. Its liver is about 25 percent of its total body weight and is rich in squalene, a substance that helps the shark to float. Its liver is about 25 percent of its total body weight. Its weight ranges between 3,000 and 6,000 kilograms, and its length is around 6.7 and 8.8 meters. Characteristics of the basking shark. Basking shark – Cetorhinus maximus FEEDING Like the whale shark and the megamouth shark, the basking shark mainly feeds on plankton, so it is not a common predator. But unlike the other two species, it does not seem to actively seek for food or use the muscles of its head to suck water, instead, it usually swims with its mouth open and catches whatever it goes through. When the water passes through its gills, the spines of the gills rakers separate the plankton from the water. The shark closes the mouth and then pumps the water out through the gills. The basking shark relies on the guidance of its large olfactory bulbs to detect food. It is a passive eater that can filter around 1,500-2,000 cubic meters of water per hour to obtain sufficient quantities of zooplankton, which also includes fish and small crustaceans, invertebrate animal larvae and fish eggs or larvae. It feeds near the ocean surface, especially when plankton is abundant. Although it has hundreds of small teeth, it does not use them when feeding. BEHAVIOR The behavior of the basking shark is still unknown except for some information obtained from the observations. The motto of “basking” was got because it spends a long time feeding under the sun. One theory states that it prefers to feed in surface waters when there is abundant plankton in that part of the ocean, and at the same time it drops the spines of its gills. These are then renewed and so on, in a continuous seasonal process. During the winter there are no sightings of basking sharks near the surface. Therefore scientists think that they migrate to deeper southern waters until the next summer. During this season many individuals are seen on the coasts of Iceland and northern Europe as they travel there to mate. The sturdy body and slow movements of the basking shark are not an impediment to jump out of the water trying to shed its parasites. It is also a relatively social animal because sometimes it forms small groups divided according to sex. Sometimes, they can form schools of up to 100 members. Its English name “basking shark,” which means “taking the sun,” comes from its habit of swimming very close to the surface with the dorsal fin out of the water.